The subject matter of U.S. patent applications: application Ser. No. 09/785,037, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING SYNERGIESxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,045, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING ENCODING PATIENT DATAxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,043, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING MULTIPLE DIAGNOSTIC MODESxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,046, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING DISEASE TIMELINExe2x80x9d; and application Ser. No. 09/785,044, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING REUSE OF DIAGNOSTIC OBJECTSxe2x80x9d are related to this application.
1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to computerized medical diagnostic systems. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a computerized system for time-based diagnosis of a patient""s medical complaint by use of dynamic data structures.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Health care costs currently represent a significant portion of the United States Gross National Product and are generally rising faster than any other component of the Consumer Price Index. Moreover, usually because of an inability to pay for medical services, many people are deprived of access to even the most basic medical care and information.
Many people delay in obtaining, or are prevented from seeking, medical attention because of cost, time constraints, or inconvenience. If the public had universal, unrestricted, and easy access to medical information, many diseases could be prevented. Likewise, the early detection and treatment of numerous diseases could keep many patients from reaching the advanced stages of illness, the treatment of which is a significant part of the financial burden attributed to our nation""s health care system. It is clear that the United States is facing health-related issues of enormous proportions and that present solutions are not robust.
Previous attempts at tackling the healthcare problem have involved various forms of automation. Some of these attempts have been in the form of a dial-in library of answers to medical questions. Other attempts have targeted providing doctors with computerized aids for use during a patient examination. These methods involve static procedures or algorithms. What is desired is an automated way of providing to a patient medical advice and diagnosis that is quick, efficient and accurate. Such a medical advice system should be modular to allow expansion for new types of medical problems or methods of detection.
Structure-based processing is a method of diagnosing diseases that works by arranging diseases, symptoms, and questions into a set of related disease, symptom, and question structures, such as objects or lists, in such a way that the structures can be processed to generate a dialogue with a patient. Each question to the patient generates one of a set of defined responses, and each response generates one of a set of defined questions. This establishes a dialogue that elicits symptoms from the patient. The symptoms are processed and weighted to rule diseases in or out. The set of ruled-in diseases establishes the diagnosis. A structure-based processing system organizes medical knowledge into formal structures and then executes those structures on a structure engine, such as a list-based engine, to automatically select the next question. The responses to the questions lead to more questions and ultimately to a diagnosis.
One aspect of the invention includes a data schema for diagnosing a disease, comprising a first disease object associated with a set of first disease symptom objects, at least one first disease symptom object having an actual symptom weight, and a second disease object associated with a set of second disease symptom objects, at least one second disease symptom object corresponding to the at least one first disease symptom object and having an alternative symptom weight.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a method of automated medical diagnosis of a patient, comprising providing at least a first symptom element having a first symptom weight, retrieving an alternative weight for the first symptom, and applying the retrieved alternative weight to a diagnostic score so as to diagnose a medical condition.